- The Untold Festival, held in Romania’s second largest city of Cluj-Napoca, is doling out free day tickets and discounted festival passes in an effort bolster the country’s dwindling blood supply.
- Free day passes were immediately handed out to donors who visited the Festival’s blood donor vans in Cluj-Napoca and Bucharest over the weekend. Those who donated at one of the country’s 42 blood donation centres by July 24 will be offered a near-30 percent discount on a $97 four-day pass.
- It’s worked so well that the regional hospital in Cluj-Napoca actually ran out of fridge space for blood bags yesterday, Festival PR manager Stefana Giurgiu told CNBC on the phone.
- „We’re seeing if we can find a fridge that has the right specifications to hold more bags,” Giurgiu said.
- Over 500 people had donated as of Tuesday. Over 300 people were turned away from the Cluj-Napoca hospital but were asked to return later in the week.
- Giurgiu said the „Pay with Blood” campaign was initially the festival’s brainchild, but they easily brought Romania’s National Institute of Blood Transfusion (NIBT) on board. It was a way to not only do something to improve the country, she said, but it actually was able to incorporate a famous Transylvanian fairy tale — namely, Dracula. He’s become a main facet of the campaigns promotional materials.
Pay with blood: Transylvanian festival offers ticket discount for donors
Kit Gillet in Bucharest, Friday 17 July 2015 10.17 BSTLast modified on Saturday 18 July 201500.02 BST/ 8,983 Shares
- Two tickets for the Transylvania music festival? That’ll be two pints of blood, please. It may sound like a bad episode of Scooby Doo, but organisers of the Untold festival in northern Romania are offering festivalgoers discounts if they donate blood before buying tickets.
- Romania ranks second to last in Europe regarding the number of active blood donors, according to data from the National Institute of Blood Transfusion, with only 1.7% of the population donating blood, and most only after someone close to them needed a transfusion.
- So, using the region’s link to vampires, thanks largely to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the festival organisers decided to team up with the blood transfusion institute to launch Pay with Blood.
- „Given that Romania faces an acute blood shortage in medical facilities, a campaign that takes inspiration from these myths in order to draw attention to a real problem is more than welcome,” the festival’s director general, Bogdan Buta, said.
- The Untold festival, which runs from 30 July - 2 August in the picturesque city of Cluj-Napoca, is offering a 30% discount to anyone who donates blood at one of Romania’s 42 blood centres until 24 July, as well as free one-day festival tickets to anyone who gives blood at a mobile unit that will be set up for two days in Bucharest or at the blood transfusion centre in Cluj-Napoca.
- „We were talking about how to incorporate Dracula into our festival and after seeing the numbers and how behind Romania was in blood donations we had this idea,” said Stefana Giurgiu, the festival’s PR manager.
- She said the idea had the backing of the blood transfusion institute, adding: „Considering many youngsters in Romania don’t donate blood and our festival is aimed at youth they saw the opportunity.”
- Forty-five people, many first-time donors, had signed up and given blood by noon on the campaign’s first day.
- „It’s great, I’ve never seen anything like this before,” said Krisztina Fejer, a 23-year-old photographer from Cluj-Napoca who plans to donate her blood for the first time early next week to get a ticket for one of her friends. „It’s a positive campaign, but I hope people continue giving blood afterwards, when there is no reward for them.”
- Pay with Blood is also proving to be a slick PR move for a first-time music festival hoping to attract hundreds of thousands of visitors to its paid venues and free entry areas. „My phone hasn’t stopped ringing since we announced the campaign,” said Giurgiu.
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- Romania is currently one of the worst European countries when it comes to active blood donors, according to NIBT statistics. Only 1.7 percent of Romania’s nearly 20 million strong-population donates blood each year. In comparison, the U.K. sees a near-three percent active donor rate, according to the country’s National Health Service.
- Despite the campaign’s success, Guirgiu insisted festival organizers aren’t worried about losing cash and says the campaign isn’t considered a major investment. The festival is currently being funded by the local authorities and corporate sponsors, including McDonalds, KFC and Durex.
- „We’re very proud of this campaign. It’s mobilized lots of youngsters,” Giurgiu said.
The four-day music festival will run from July 30 to August 2.
Romania: ‘Pay with blood’ at Transylvania music festival
(By News from Elsewhere......as found by BBC Monitoring/ 17 July 2015)
- „Taking inspiration from the world’s most famous vampire, a Romanian music festival is offering free or discounted tickets to people who give blood.
- The Untold festival takes place in Transylvania at the end of July, and organisers are hoping that their „pay with blood” campaign will encourage more donors to come forward, the national news agency Agerpres reports. Playing on the region’s association with Count Dracula, posters for the campaign show a vampire hooked up to a blood bag. „Given that Romania faces an acute blood shortage in medical facilities, a campaign that takes inspiration from these myths in order to draw attention to a real problem is more than welcome,” says the festival director Bogdan Buta.
- Festival-goers who sign up to become blood donors online will receive discounts, and those who show up in person at centres in Bucharest and Cluj will be given one-day tickets on the spot. The campaign is being run in conjunction with Romania’s National Blood Transfusion Institute. Romania has one of the lowest figures for blood donation in the whole of Europe - less than 2% of the population are active donors, far lower than elsewhere in the European Union”.
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